I appreciate the work and where you are trying to take it, but visually, it's not fully hitting the mark for me.

why?

• feels unfinished, blocky. color scheme is depressing. too monochromatic. why greyscale? perhaps it could work in a different format, but in the boxed up format it looks like block UI.

• the logo is almost the same as the nav links. you should consider distinguishing it through color, size or some other means so that it stands apart. is it a link or a brand? not sure.

• why the angle in the header? if you carried and supported it throughout as a design element in other areas, it would make sense. it could also make more sense if it was JUST in the DL and nowhere else.

• the dynamic lead takes up a lot of space. you could have exposed all of the items at once and still have the cycle, so that we don't have to wait through all the slides.

• left column works alright, thought the alternating list colors could use more emphasis. their purpose is lost without the contrast to support it. the dark color behind the numbers feels too heavy. it could lighten up a little to balance itself with its corresponding content.

• center column also works pretty well. maybe some color coding for the sections would help. "interviews" in blue, "blog" in orange, etc. good separation of content through the black and white bg colors. for the list articles, you might want to add a subtle alternating color (light grey) to aid scanning through, as you've done (almost imperceptibly) in the left column list under reviews.

• right column elements are blending together too much. hard to tell what's what. my eyes are glazing over it instead of being focused towards specific modules

• footer should be the same color as the header to bookend the page.

it's a decent jump forward, Dan. just feels like it needs some more love before the final.